James Inhofe: mr. inhofe: mr. president, i'm going to come back at 4:00 today because there's something that's going on with all the people that are talking about the atrocities in libya and throughout the middle east. there's one more atrocity that's taking place right now in a country called cote d'ivoire in west africa. and i want to make sure that i

James Inhofe: get on record in that i believe our state department ask wrong in the position that they have taken -- is wrong in the position that they have taken on this. we can right now avert a real tragedy, something maybe comparable to what happened in 1994 in rwanda with the genocide. so i want to come back and talk about that, but i'm going to do that sometime around 4:00 this afternoon.

James Inhofe: in the meantime, the business at hand is the amendments -- are the amendments to the small business act. the amendment that has been most talked about and is the one that i have authored along with senator mcconnell is the same thing as the bill that i introduced some time ago with

James Inhofe: fred upton, congressman fred upton of the house, and myself, inhofe, of the senate. that's something that's going -- to give you a little background, let me say this has been about a nine-year battle for meevment i've gone all the way back to kyoto when we talked about the fact that we are going to have to do something to limit

James Inhofe: greenhouse gases. at that time -- this was this is a national treaty. it was during the clinton-gore administration. and everyone at that time stated and felt, and i agreed with because no one said anything to the contrary, that greenhouse gases or anthropogenic gases,

James Inhofe: methane, co2, causes catastrophic global warming. everyone believed that. that all started with the united nations, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. many years ago back in th 1990's. then as we -- there was a wake-up call and we thought, why should we, as the united states

James Inhofe: of america, sign on to a treaty when the rest. world wasn't going to do it, when it was going to be difficult for us to -- difficult for us economically and it would not affect the developing world? so we passed a resolution saying we weren't going to do t right

James Inhofe: after that 2002, 2003, 2007, and 2009 and as recently as last year different members have introduced legislation that would impose this -- almost the same thing as the kyoto treaty on us, and that is cap and trade. what i did -- and at that time republicans were in the majority. i was the chairman of a committee called the environment and public works.

James Inhofe: in that committee it was -- we thought we better look at this to make sure that the science is there. now, mr. president, this is important because we had found out that for us to pass a cap-and-trade bill, the cost would be somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion a year. so my feeling was, as chairman of that committee, let's find

James Inhofe: out if in fact it is -- it is, you -- it is -- you know, the science is there. we will, scientists started coming to me, one after another after another after another, when they knew that i was going to question the legitimacy of the science and said, you noshing the science isn't there. we're getting the opportunity to

James Inhofe: get our views this. that became reality. the waxman-markey bill came over from the house. we're talking about something that would cost the american people between $300 billion ands 400 billion a year. now, sometimes i'm not quite as smart as some of the guys around here, when you talk about billions and trillions of dlarks

James Inhofe: i like to look and see how does that feactd my state of oklahoma. i have the tax returns filed by oklahomans and i do the math and when you do the math with $300 billion to $400 billion a year, that means it would cost my average taxpayer who files a tax return in oklahoma, a little over $3,100 a year. if that's going to stop the

James Inhofe: world from coming in, maybe that's whrnlg it. what do you get for that? even lease is jackson, the administrator of the environmental protection agency, and of course she's one that was apopts pointed by president obama, when we asked her -- and her in a public hearing, if we were to pass any of these

James Inhofe: cap-and-trade bills that would be so costly to americans, what would it do in terms of greenhouse gases? her response was, we will, it would do very little of anything because that would only affect the united states of america. that's not where the problem s the problem is in places like china and mexico. as we lost our jobs to other

James Inhofe: states, obviously it will end up increasing the emissions of co2. so that'sed kind of where we were. we had the passed all these thifntion and so with the president just absolutely committed to doing something about the emissions of co2, he decided that he would do it through regulation.

James Inhofe: what he could not do through legislation. so we had legislation that couldn't pass and so obviously he went ahead and started saying that we're going to let the e.p.a. do the same thing as we would have done in the -- with legislation. now, that again would cost the american people between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.

James Inhofe: we will, to do that, you have to have what -- well, to do that, you have to have what -- this is kind of in the weeds, mr. president -- you have to have an endangerment finding. it has to be a proclamation by the administration and has to be based on science. a year and a half ago right before the copenhagen event, we had, again, lisa jackson, the

James Inhofe: administrator of the e.p.a., a very fine person, one who was courageous enough to tell the truth when asked a question. she was in and i asked the question again in a public forum. i said, director jackson, i'm going to le copenhagen. i am going to be a one-man truth

James Inhofe: squad. now, if you're going to do this through the administration, that means you have to base it on some type of science. i asked the question, what type of science -- what type of science will you base this type of science on, the endangerment finding? the answer was the ipcc shall

James Inhofe: the intergovernmental panel on climate change. it all started with the united nations. and we're going to be in a position to look and see just what -- you know, where we would go from here. so with that, coincidentally -- and it wasn't by design -- somebody uncovered a lot of e-mails and things over in

James Inhofe: europe that totally defunked or discredited what they were trying to do over there with the science. nerksdz the ipcc was cooking the science. i think we all know that. so now we have an effort to use an endangerment finding to try to do this by regulation. and they're just going full ahead as much as they can. i have to say that it's my

James Inhofe: feeling that this obama administration, they don't really want to have fossil fuels. when i say that, i will back up some things by stating what the administration has said. the secretary of economic policy says the administration believes it is no longer sufficient to address the nation's energy

James Inhofe: needs by finding more fossil fuels. we're talking about oil, gas, coal -- fossil fuels. then there's another statement that was made to the extent the lower tax rate encourages overproduction of oil and gas, it is detrimental to long-term energy security. what this is, the administration is saying we want green -- we want green nrpg. that's fine. we all want green energy and

James Inhofe: after i'm dead and gone, aim sure the technology will be there and we'll be able to run this country on green energy. in the meantime, you can't do it without oil, gas, and coal. right now we're dependent on coal for 50% of all of our energy. i would like to say also, if i can find it -- yes, here is another statement. this is out of the obama

James Inhofe: administration, mr. president. steven chu, secretary of energy, told "the wall street journal," "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in europe." in other words, unless we get the american people really complaining about high price of gas, we're not going to be doing nismg so the bottom line here, they're trying to boost the

James Inhofe: price of gas to do that. this is the surprise here. i couldn't have said this a year ago, but the c.r.s., congressional research, which sprich not challenged, they -- which pretty much is not challenged, they came up with the fact -- put the first chart up -- that we in the united states have more

James Inhofe: reserves in oil, gas, and coal than any other country in the world. here we are right here. the next is russia. next to that saudi arabia. you can see here, we have more than saudi arabia, china, and iran all put together. that's us right there. that's the united states of america. we have those reserves. now, you'll hear people say, we will, we don't because we only

James Inhofe: have 3% of the world's supply of oil and gas. well, they're saying that because they're using the term "proven reserves." in order to have proven reserves, you have to drill to find out and prove that the oil is there. obviously if we have a government, an administration who won't let us drill for oil and gas, then obviously we can't

James Inhofe: be proven. so we have to go by recoverable. and no one will argue with this well, they might argue but they can't do it with a straight face -- that recoverable reserves are very, very large. here's what we have in caves oil right here -- in case of oil right here. it is -- this amount here.

James Inhofe: 135 billion barrels of oil, 83% of the oil. by the way, 83% of the oil that would be on public lands, we won't allow ourselves -- or the liberals in this body won't allow us -- and the white house -- to drill because they have their -- not just the moratorium

James Inhofe: but they stop us sometimes through permits. but we have enough oil to run this country for 50 years without being reliant upon anybody else, without being reliant upon certainly the middle east or any of the rest of our hemisphere. now, if we were to go ahead and with the friendlies in our hemisphere -- canada, mexico -- we could be independent of the middle east in a very short

James Inhofe: period of time. in natural gas, we have huge -- oh, i'm sorry. coal -- in coacialtion the united states has 28% of all the coal. and that's a very significant thing. as far as natural gas is concerned, we have enough natural gas to actually run this country for 90 years.

James Inhofe: at the rate we're using natural gas now, only on our own, if we would allow ourselves to go ahead and -- and produce it. so that's where we are right n now, and, of course, we have -- i would be remiss if i didn't say we've been wanting my amendment. it's amendment number 183 to the small business act. we've been trying to get it up

James Inhofe: for three -- three weeks now and several times it's been postponed. i think it's been postponed for one of two reasons. either the -- they don't have the votes to stop it, and according to senator manchin from west virginia, who stated just the other day there are 12 or 13 democrats willing to vote for my amendment and you get all the republicans, that would be

James Inhofe: enough to reach 60 and pass my amendment. what does my amendment do? it takes away the jurisdiction from the environmental protection agency from regulating greenhouse gases. simple as that. so we -- maybe we have the votes there. but the other reason is -- and i don't blame the leadership on the other side of the aisle, they don't want to subject their

James Inhofe: senators to voting, to have to cast a vote that would make -- that would allow the e.p.a. to continue harassing and overregulating manufacturers and refineries and businesses and farmers and -- and the rest of america. well, there are two votes that are out there that they've been offering as cover votes. one's the baucus amendment and the other's the rockefeller

James Inhofe: amendment. the baucus amendment would exempt some of the smaller ones. frankly, i think everyone knows that that is something that really wouldn't work. in fact, somewhere here i have the quotes from the american farm bureau. well, i don't have it right here but by and large what they say is that they want to be sure

James Inhofe: that everyone understands that you can't pass the baucus amendment because that will just -- you -- you could exempt some farmers and some other smaller people, schools maybe, churches, but with the higher price of energy, it all trickles down to them. so that's why the american farm bureau, the association of manufacturers and others are

James Inhofe: very much in -- in favor of my amendment. the other one is the -- the rockefeller amendment that would merely delay it for two years. the reason i'm opposed to this -- and on the floor of the senate, senator rockefeller made some statements on the floor the other day that weren't very flattering and that's unlike him because normally that's not the

James Inhofe: way he would do. he -- unfortunately my effort was dubbed as -- quote -- a childlike, immature, and, yes, you guessed it, crazy too." but i would only say that over the years that senator rockefeller has stated that the e.p.a. -- well, i'll just read you what he has stated. "e.p.a. has little or nor authority to address economic needs.

James Inhofe: they say they do but they don't. they have no ability to incentivize and deploy new technologies. they have no obligation to protect the hard-wo people," and on and on and on. so i would agree with those statements of senator rockefeller. i would just say that if you're going on get rid of this thing, this overregulation, let's go ahead and do it. let's don't just postpone something for two years.

James Inhofe: we have documentations from various companies, industries that say we are going to put something in place that's going to employ a large number of people but we -- we can't do it so long as the uncertainty is -- is out there.

James Inhofe: the -- point comfort in texas, 1,182 jobs were lost. they wanted to -- they were planning a formosa plastics that had been planned, planning a $1 billion operation and expansion. it would have employed 700 construction jobs, 357 service jobs, 125 full-time operations and maintenance jobs and yet they're not doing it because of the regulation that's taking

James Inhofe: place and the uncertainty of what the e.p.a. is going to be doing to us. elderado, arkansas, similar situation. the arkansas-based lion oil was forced to delay several hundred million dollars of refinery expansion because of the uncertainty of the regulation by the environmental protection agency.

James Inhofe: louisiana, the same thing, 1,850 jobs that are lost. so i would only say this, i've had people ask me over the years, and they say, inhofe, what if you're wrong? well, this is what i would say and how i respond to that. when you stop and say, if i'm wrong and the -- actually the greenhouse gases do cause catastrophic global warming, if

James Inhofe: that's the case, then you're not going to resolve it by having united states of america do something unilaterally. the chinese are over there celebrating right now, hoping that we'll pass something to stop us fro regulating -- or make us regulate greenhouse gases because those jobs, as we have

James Inhofe: them -- and we have all the figures on this if anyone's interested, my web site is inhofe.senate.gov. we can quantify the money lost and jobs involved. stop and think about it. anyone who's a comparable state to oklahoma, do you really want to increase your taxes by over $3,000 a year and you get nothing for it? with that i would just make another appeal to the

James Inhofe: administration and to the -- t the -- the democrats here in the senate to call a vote on my amendment number 183. just call it and let's get this thing behind us. let's try to save energy for america. with that, i will yield the floor mr. kyl: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. i want to compliment my colleague from oklahoma for the